Solved Checkered Pattern After Boot up

[kobe1976]

Booted up my PC tonight and a checkered pattern came up on the screen which looks like this:


imgur: the simple image sharer


It works in safe mode and also when I uninstall the display drivers, but after the drivers are reinstalled it goes back to that checkered screen again.
Is it a dead graphics card?


Windows 7
Radeon 6950

 

[maxie]

Hi Does it work in Normal Mode with out any Driver ? ...

For sure some sort of Hardware fault ...


You have an On-Board Graphics ... Remove the Card to see how that works ..


Can not do any harm to Clean the PCI slot as well ....

 

[Gornot]

The drivers you reinstalled - are they the newest version available?

If no, download the newest version and try those.
If yes, uninstall them again and try an older version if you can find it. See how it goes.

 

[kobe1976]

It works in normal mode when I removed the drivers but only at a much lower resolution.

I'm using onboard graphics now but when I installed the Intel HD 2000/3000 drivers it causes a black screen, so I had to remove that as well. It will only work with the standard vga driver at 1280x1024

The drivers for the Radeon were the latest version but I have not tried reverting to an older version yet.

 

[kobe1976]

Also, I'm not sure if this is related, but for the last year or so I was getting 'split screen' problems when playing some games. I don't have any pictures of those, but it is when 1/4 of the right side of the screen is on the left. For eg. the clock which sits in the right corner goes to the left side.

 

[Gornot]

If Intel's onboard graphics don't work properly either... it might just be an actual hardware issue.

When does the screen to black? During the installation of the Intel's drivers, or upon restart? Strange...

In any case, I would install an older version of the drivers for the dedicated card and see if that fixes it.

The screen splitting issue... I'm bad with hardware itself so the only thing that comes to my mind is that perhaps you've attached a second monitor in the past, and that causes issues somehow?

 

[kobe1976]

The screen goes black upon restart, but not immediately either. It works fine at first for about 30-60secs at 1920x1080, but then turns black after that. Happens every time.

I am downloading an old AMD driver now to try that. I will let you know how it goes.

 

[Gornot]

Make sure you don't have Windows Update installed updates in the background automatically. Even if the older driver clears up the issue, WU may attempt to installed the newest version again. I learned that the hard way the last time I installed W8.1 xD

 

[kobe1976]

I don't have windows do automatic updates at all.

I just finished downloading the old AMD drivers, but didn't install them yet.
I went into BIOS to switch back to the primary card and it wouldn't boot into windows at all! It just freezes at the windows splash screen.

I'm now back using onboard video again.

Any other suggestions? Should I just go out and buy a replacement card tomorrow?

 

[maxie]

An older Driver is sure worth a try .... Where did you Install the Intel Driver from ?


ASRock > H61M/U3S3

 

[maxie]

When you put the Card in it should change back itself ...

 

[kobe1976]

I installed from the official Intel site, but later on I also tried the one you linked. Still gave me black screen.

 

[kobe1976]

I actually didn't remove the dedicated card. Was I supposed to?

All I did was switch to onboard graphics in BIOS then plug into the onboard port at the back.

 

[maxie]

I would try removing the Card and clean the slot .. Will not do any harm ..

 

[kobe1976]

I will try that tomorrow, very late for me now almost 3am.

Thanks guys, I will report back tomorrow how it went.

 

[maxie]

Try to get the Intel Graphics to work on there own first ...

 

[kobe1976]

Ok, I removed the card, cleaned it, cleaned the slot, put it back in and it still freezes at the windows splash screen.

Tried the Intel drivers again, which once again gave me a black screen.

Then I physically removed the dedicated card from the system to see if the onboard display works and it does! I think there was some conflict with the onboard card and the dedicated one.

So what is my next step now? Is it safe to assume my video card is dead and I need a new one? What if I buy a new one and still get the same problem?

 

[Gornot]

Can you get to BIOS with the dedicated card plugged in?

Like I said, I'm not too good with hardware, but there must be something in BIOS that might've been set wrong or something.

You can only choose one or the other, right? Does the system freeze at the splash screen when you chose the dedicated card in BIOS or the onboard one?

 

[kobe1976]

BIOS is accessible with the card plugged in. I had not touched BIOS before this problem happened so I doubt it's a problem with BIOS settings.

It only freezes when I choose the dedicated card, the onboard one works fine now. The thing that puzzles me somewhat is I can't reproduce that checkered pattern anymore because it freezes at windows splash.

 

[Gornot]

Let me see if I can get someone to join in on this...